What I Did on my Blogging Vacation: Writing the Dissertation and Finding a Job
The last time I posted — about a month ago on Charlie Sheen — I was completing the conclusion to my dissertation, gearing up for SCMS (film and media studies’ annual international conference) and feeling solid about the state of my dissertation. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MONTH MAKES.
Since then, I have:
1.) Finished and handed in the completed draft of my dissertation, thinking it was (mostly) fine.
2.) Attended, reveled, and left completely exhausted from SCMS (in New Orleans), where I made several new friends who specialize in celebrity gossip, met scholars whose work has been fundamental and inspirational to my own, and presented on blogging, tweeting, and online networking as a media studies academic.
3.) Came home completely without a voice, which led to the very unfortunate cancellation of my presentation on Kanye and Twitter at SXSW.
4.) Took four separate plane trips in four weeks.
5.) Received the final editorial comments from my advisors on the diss…..and went into a five day flurry of final revisions that challenged me in a way (physically and intellectually) I haven’t felt since the beginning of grad school. (More on this below).
6.) Turned in the final final version of the dissertation just in time to allow readers four weeks before my defense….which will in turn allow me to graduate this May and receive my diploma on my 30th birthday.
7.) Accepted an unexpected dream job teaching film, media, cultural studies, and literature at The Putney School in Southern Vermont. More on this below as well.
8.) Received some exciting/unexpected/super promising emails related to the transformation of my dissertation into a book (if you’re ever wondering about the utility of a blog related to your research, THERE’S A GOOD REASON RIGHT THERE).
8.) Spent a ludicrous amount of time in the meantime catching up on sleep, reading fiction, doing yoga, and playing in the 80 degree Austin weather.
Before I return to regular celebrity gossip, academic style blogging, I do want to say a few words about completing the dissertation and my decision to take the job that I did. While most of the posts on this blog address celebrities and pop culture (the “celebrity gossip” in the blog title) it also approaches them from a perspective grounded in academia….and my relation to academia has always influenced my approach to blogging, my own blogging voice, and the type of topics I choose to cover. I also wish that there had been more descriptions of the dissertation process (and job market) in media studies in particular before I started my own journey, if only to make me feel just slightly more prepared.
FIRST, THE DISS.
I should begin with the caveat that I wrote my dissertation in nine months. I ostensibly began my research on June 1st and handed in the final copy in March. THIS IS NOT NORMAL, AND MIGHT EVEN BE RIDICULOUS. There were a few reasons for the brevity of my dissertating phase:
*I had a number of wise advisors at my master’s program who suggested that I try to use my seminars in my Ph.D. program to investigate and write initial drafts of chapters. So I did this, whenever possible. When I started writing my prospectus, I had already written drafts of three of my chapters. OR SO I THOUGHT. (More on this below).
*I was also lucky to have found a topic — even before I started my Ph.D. program — that I loved and that continued to fascinate me. The approach, scope, and argument concerning that topic (the production of celebrity gossip) has changed over the years, but the overarching topic has not.
*Because I needed to be officially ABD when I started my stint as a Visiting Instructor at Whitman College last Spring, I churned out a prospectus in the two months after I had finished my comprehensive exams (August 2009).
*When I was at Whitman, I was teaching three classes that I had never taught before — and knew that I needed to put the diss on the back burner during that time. I submitted and performed edits on articles during this time (at least one of which became a big chunk of the diss) but did not research or write on the diss from January through May of 2010.
*I am a fast writer and a slow reviser. As evidenced by the sheer length of my blog posts, sitting down and writing has never been a problem for me. Writing better — and with more concision and verve — sometimes has. When people ask how I managed to write over 400 pages so quickly, that seems like the easy part. The harder part was doing the initial research (many hours in the basement of the library on the microfiche machine and sifting through Lexis Nexus) and agonizing over revisions over the last two months.
*My dissertation advisor is phenomenally organized, which meant that I received feedback on my early drafts very quickly. Don’t underestimate how important this is.
My dissertation looks nothing like what I envisioned it as a first year Ph.D. student. It also looks very little like the dissertation I envisioned in my prospectus. Or, rather, the thrust of the argument is the same — but the organization, e.g. the way I went about proving my point, and the language I used in proving that point, has changed rather substantially. What started as a five-chapter consideration of five case studies between 1954 and the present ballooned into a ten chapter look at major shifts in the way that outlets within the gossip industry processed and mediated stars, basically starting at the beginning of the studio system.
[There are various philosophies about how the timeline of researching/writing a prospectus/proceeding through the diss should work. Mine had to be a certain way because of my job at Whitman. If I had to do it over again, it'd be awesome to have had a more thorough grasp of what I'd end up arguing -- in other words, have actually performed more of the initial nitty-gritty primary research. Granted, I had done a fair amount of that nitty-gritty during previous seminars, which saved a lot of time when it came to writing about People, The National Enquirer, Confidential, Entertainment Tonight, Perez, and TMZ. In the end, the way that I did it worked out -- and also helped me keep some momentum, which again cannot be underestimated.]
Even once I figured out how I’d organize the chapters, the diss was constantly transforming before my eyes — especially since I do most specific industrial research for a chapter right before I write it (rather than doing all the research upfront). I didn’t realize that I would be making the arguments about Entertainment Weekly/E!/Extra and their relation to Time Warner that I did, in part because I simply didn’t know as much about them as I thought I did.
Oh, did I mention the fact that only about two or three academics have written about my topic EVER?!? That makes it so much easier to research! Obviously I read just about everything ever written (academically) on Hollywood stars/star theory, but there was very little theorization of the way that these stars were mediated and how the industry that profits from that mediation works/relates to the rest of Hollywood. At times, this lack was painful, as I basically felt like I was connecting dots and forging arguments in the academic wilderness. But then again, I rarely had to pussyfoot around other scholars’ arguments or try to focus on refining a slight argument already made by another scholar. Virgin scholastic territory has its benefits.
My dissertation committee was made of five members, each with specific expertise in an area related to a section of the dissertation (industry, television, 1960s/70s stardom, 1950s stardom, etc.) As such, my chief advisor read every chapter, but an additional committee member also read the chapters that dealt with his/her expertise. Not only did this really help to refine my arguments in subsequent drafts, but also (somewhat) ensures that I won’t have any surprise or major objections when I defend in two weeks.
When I turned in the COMPLETE WHOLE THING at the very beginning of March, I thought things were pretty great. It was done; I would receive a few additional suggestions; I would perform final revisions; there we go. But after returning from Spring Break, both my chief advisor and my other chief reader/editor (who, for those of you who know the person I’m referencing, is famous for his incisive and incredibly editing skills…..that also require a fair amount of work) both basically told me that I had done a very nice job of doing a lot of researching, treading new ground, and forging an argument…..but that the diss, as it was, was merely good when it could be really great. What followed was a whirlwind (read: FIVE DAYS) final editing process in which I cut nearly 50 pages, added 15, and turned the “okay” into something much tighter, compelling, and, hopefully, great. It hurt like a bitch, and I nearly pulled the first all-nighter of my life, but I couldn’t be more grateful that they pushed me to make it better.
You may be asking, “why didn’t this silly girl just take more time?” Economic realities. Last year, the UT RTF program announced that they could not guarantee any funding past the fourth year. Several of my friends in their fifth year were forced to hodgepodge teaching-intensive appointments outside of the department during their fifth years. And while my leave of absence last year (to teach at Whitman) ensured at least another semester of funding, friends, I am sick and tired of accruing loans. I did not go to graduate school in the humanities to amass a loan load similar to that of law and med students who will go on to massive salaries. Yet the realities of living in Austin on our salary have forced continued accumulation of debt, even with my (temporary) Whitman salary to defer costs. What’s more, if the job market this year has taught me anything, it’s that ABDs (people without a completed degree next to their name) are put on the very bottom of the pile, if not entirely discarded, when it comes to job searches. And, as my very sage MA advisor Mike Aronson told me during my second quarter at Oregon, “a good dissertation is a done dissertation.”
And so, it will be done — dependent, of course, upon the committee’s approval on April 22nd.
SECOND, THE JOB.
I’m not going to go into super detail about the media studies job search. Suffice to say that I applied for around fifty jobs — with varying degrees of fit — and received several “bites” (request for additional materials, phone interviews, MLA interviews) but nothing past the first round. From speaking with others in my situation, my lot seems to be very typical. The jobs that used to go to ABDs are now going to those at visitings/postdocs/those fleeing the California schools and downsizing departments. UT has no opportunities for adjuncting or postdocs. In other words, around the end of February, the future was looking very dim. Would I delay the dissertation? Would I defend and try to make ends meet by returning to nannying? (Which, JUST SAYIN’, paid three times what I make as a grad student — at least when I lived in Seattle). How in the world would I get health insurance? On a whim, I Googled a school that had long resided in my recesses of my mind, where rigorous academics met with a dedication to the experience of the natural world. Over the years, I’ve met a handful of people who’ve attended this school, each of which were remarkable, unique, and intellectually confident in a way I cannot quite put in words.
This school — The Putney School — happened to be advertising an opening in English. My undergraduate and M.A. degrees qualify me to teach English; my five years of teaching experience qualify me to teach; my two summers teaching gifted and talented high school students qualified me to teach high school students. I also thought my upbringing in history with the natural world (hiking, mountaineering, climbing, alpine and cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, gardening, horseback riding) as a child and student in the Pacific Northwest might make me an even more attractive candidate. But high school? Did I really want to do this? Didn’t I pursue a Ph.D. so that I could teach college level kids?
Fear for my future led me to apply. Two weeks later, I received a request for an initial phone interview, which later turned into a Skype interview and an on-campus interview in Vermont. The school flat out bewitched me. There were three feet of snow on the ground — a reality with which I knew I would have to grow accustomed, if I was offered the job — but the students, the campus (on a beautiful farm on dozens of acres atop a hill, just a few miles from Brattleboro, Vermont), the landscape, the confidence and intelligence and overarching energy of the place……I fell in love. I had the opportunity to teach a class of seven students, and they were, no joking, more engaged, engaging, insightful, and straight-out *hungry* to learn than any other students I have encountered, whether at Whitman, Texas, or Oregon. Putney was founded as a progressive school, which means that it builds on the philosophy of John Dewey — who believed, as Putney and its community does, that education is all that you do. Whether waking up at 6 a.m. to milk cows, participating in a small seminar on Existentialism, or learning how to blacksmith, it’s all part of education and the subsequent cultivation of character and intellect.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the reason I had decided to get into academia was not to get a job, but to teach — and to teach at a small liberal arts college where I could help reproduce the type of education that I myself had received at Whitman. The publishing, the networking — all of that was done in service of that greater goal. But when I stepped back, I realized that Putney was a liberal arts college in a smaller package, with even more of the philosophy and adaptability (and lack of red tape) that could create an invigorating and sustaining learning environment for both teachers and students. Did I mention that I get ridiculous breaks? That it’s gorgeous? That I’ll use about a tank of gas a year? The yoga studio looking out into the mountains? There’s a second breakfast built into the day called “MILK LUNCH,” complete with fresh baked bread! The lack of grades and subsequent lack of grade-grubbing? The small (read: 5-10) class size?
But will I end up teaching English? No, or at least not traditionally. Part of the reason Putney was drawn to my application was, indeed, my background in media studies. (And, I’m guessing, the fact of the Ph.D. — they received over 300 applications (a testament to the trickle-down from the academic market). Yet the English Department had recently decided to perform a dramatic overhaul of their 11th grade curriculum, transforming a course that had previously focused on American literature into one more broadly concerned with American culture — essentially an American Studies/Cultural Studies course. Which is exactly what I do: even when I teach Film History, it’s part industrial history, part cultural history. Star/celebrity studies would not exist without movies and television and other forms of media, but the disciplines are not about the texts in which stars/celebrity appear so much as the ways in which those texts contribute to the star or celebrity’s cultural reception and significance. In other words, this is perfect. For next year, I’ll also be teaching “elective” courses (for upperclassman) in Post-Katrina Media (Treme, When the Levees Broke, Zeitoun, etc.) and Modernism and Modernity, both of which I designed myself.
I received the job offer half-way through SCMS, which was both discombobulating and incredibly fortunate. I was able to talk through the possibility with basically all of the scholars/friends that I admire and who have provided guidance in the past, and the overarching consensus was that taking the job at Putney did not mean forever foreclosing my future as an academic. Sure, I’ll probably never get a job at an Research-1 university. But that was never the goal. So long as I continue to publish, get my diss out in book form, choose my applications carefully, and concentrate on teaching, I could potentially parlay my time at Putney into a job at a liberal arts school. Who knows: maybe I’ll stay at Putney for 20 years, maybe I’ll stay for 3.
If you asked me a year ago if I would’ve ever considered taking a job at the high school level, I would’ve said absolutely not. But opportunities sometimes do not arrive as advertised, and embracing this opportunity took a significant amount of paradigm shifting — and thinking about what I really wanted and needed to be happy and stimulated, whether intellectually, psychologically, or academically. Miles and miles of running/hiking/cross-country trails out my backdoor! Fresh milk and organic vegetables at every meal! MOUNTAINS! Kids who LIKE LEARNING! Those things might not make you happy, but few things make me happier.
To conclude, I’m thrilled to be back on the blogging train and rest assured have no plans to discontinue Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style when I begin at Putney in the Fall. I do hope that I’ve in some way shed light on my own journey through the dissertation and job search process, and would be happy to answer any questions you might have, either in the comments, on Twitter, or via email.
(If you haven’t hopped on the bandwagon, I encourage you to join the Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style Facebook page, where I post the MVP gossip/celebrity/star bits on a daily basis — at least check it out. Not spammy, just awesome.)
Blatant Self-Promotion: New Article in the Austin Chronicle
Not by me, but about me. If you’re a regular reader of the site, hey, you probably know all this stuff, but maybe you’ll just want to make fun of the way I look in the picture (I am apparently VERY EMPHATIC about gossip), or the fact that I use naughty words.
Either way, it’s a great read, and the author, Melanie Haupt, obviously gets what me, and my blog, are trying to do. I had a great time chatting with her and can only hope that the article encourages others to engage more critically with the stars/gossip they consume. That or start reading my blog.
Check it out here. If you live in Austin, you can pick up a hard copy at anywhere cool until Thursday.
Call for Submissions - Celebrity Gossip: Industry and Identity
Below you’ll find a Call for Submissions for an SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies) Panel I’m co-organizing with Jennifer Frost, who’s just completed Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism. If you know of anyone who’d be interested in submitting, please pass along! Or you can just pass this along to the four corners of the intertubes, either way.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - CELEBRITY GOSSIP: INDUSTRY AND IDENTITY
(SCMS 2011; SUBMISSIONS DUE 08/10/2010)
Plainly put: without gossip, there would be no celebrities. Indeed, what we say and read about stars and celebrities constitutes their images just as much, if not more, than any film role, television appearance, or commercial endorsement. Long dismissed as the shrill, smutty stepchild of Hollywood, the phenomenal success of Perez Hilton and TMZ reminds us that gossip remains as profitable and pertinent as during its ‘golden age’ spanning the 1930s-40s. This panel thus aims to explore celebrity gossip in its myriad forms: as an industry, a form of media, and a means of identity formation. It will thus pay specific attention to the ways in which gossip not only forms a crucial node in the production of popular entities, but influences and organizes the ways in which those figures are received in both the domestic and international sphere.
This panel hopes to additionally address how participation in the consumption and proliferation of gossip serves as a form of identity formation; how, for example, discussing a celebrity’s sexual proclivities or parenting choices offers a way of working through that celebrity’s embodiment of or challenge to the status quo. In this way, celebrity gossip provides the figurative paperwork for declarations of media citizenship, as readers engage analog and digital tools to ‘gossip back,’ forming real and imaginary communities around the figures whose images and lifestyles provide means of making meaning of their own.
Submissions may address (but are in no way limited to):
- The cultural and industrial history of celebrity gossip: the ‘gossip mavens’ Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, Mike Connolly, Rona Barrett, etc.
- Gossip’s shift in focus from Hollywood stars to celebrity writ large in the 1950s-1960s, with increasing attention to Jackie Kennedy, television personalities, Elvis, etc.
- The role of gossip in the proliferation and negotiation of scandal
- Gossip’s mode of address and ‘ideal readers’ — and the relation to race, gender, sexuality, nationality.
- The aesthetics of gossip; gossip as camp
- Specific gossip publications, such as Photoplay, Confidential, daily gossip columns, radio broadcasts, magazines, tabloids, television programs, gossip blogs
- Gossip’s relation to feminism and/or postfeminism
- Gossip’s role and placement within Conglomerate Hollywood
- Contemporary gossip personalities (Perez Hilton, Lainey Gossip, The Fug Girls)
- New Media Gossip — interactivity, comments sections, convergence.
- Gossip’s role in the reception of specific celebrity images, e.g. Mel Gibson, Tiger Woods
- How, and why, we should archive celebrity gossip — and the difficulty of accessing historical gossip materials
Please email abstracts of 250-300 words and a brief bio (Name, Affiliation, Position) by August 10th, 2010 to:
Anne Helen Petersen
University of Texas-Austin, Department of Radio-Television-Film
[email protected]
Scaring Off The Grad Student Twitterati
First, a caveat: My apologies for authoring a third post on Twitter over the course of two weeks. I promise: we’ll get some good J-Lo gossip soon. What’s more, the post that follows deals with my experience this past weekend at an academic conference and how Twitter both accentuated and ‘scandalized’ those proceedings — while it will certainly be of interest to anyone who’s ever been concerned with how junior professionals grapple with how their name/image is bandied about in public spaces, there will be a little bit of ‘inside baseball’ academic talk.
With that said, I’ve just arrived home from a long weekend spent in Eugene, Oregon at the 2010 Console-ing Passions Conference. The funky name is a vestige of the 1990s, when pun-y, hyphenated names and titles were all the rage in academia — basically it’s a feminist media conference that deals with many of the texts, approaches, and concerns that have long been marginalized by mainstream media studies (although that situation is gradually changing). In other words, this was a conference with a ton of panels that dealt explicitly with identity politics (race, class, sexuality, gender, etc.) and also dealt with texts, such as my own objects of study (gossip, stars, celebrity et. al.), that are still eschewed by some in the academy. (At SCMS, the ‘big dog’ of media studies conferences, I had a senior male scholar visibly recoil and scoff when I told him that my dissertation was on the history of celebrity gossip).
For various reasons, there was no internet access at SCMS, a situation that rightly infuriated many participants (myself included), mostly because it prevented any sort of live Twitter coverage of the panels. Hello: MEDIA STUDIES CONFERENCE. This situation will of course be remedied at SCMS next year, but it also left many of us media studies scholars who are regular users of Twitter. Thus, when Console-ing Passions rolled around six weeks later, anticipation for what live-tweeting would like like — and how it would be received — was high.
Indeed, as both Jason Mittell and Max Dawson pointed out (through Twitter) almost immediately, one morning panel of CP had inspired more Tweets than the whole of SCMS. I myself live-Tweeted most of the panels I attended (if you follow me on Twitter, this was obvious); I greatly enjoyed being able to look back on what was live-Tweeting about my *own* presentation — not to mention participating in the back-channels that emerged during several panels and the plenary.
Melissa Click authored a great wrap-up of the conference over at Antenna, and Amanda Ann Klein has a great piece on the uses and mis-uses (including several Twitter highlights). As Amanda emphasizes, Twitter can create really productive conversation — but the particular interactions on the backchannel (and their ramifications) at this conference leads us, as scholars, to think about how Twitter will be used in the future — and if we should come up with some tentative ‘guidelines’ to guide us towards a proper conference Twitter etiquette.
Now, Amanda also draws attention to what might be the most controversial use of Twitter at the conference — an event that took place at the plenary. Here’s Click’s succinct recap of the plenary itself:
“The CP plenary was Friday’s anticipated event. The plenary, titled “Publishing What We Preach: Feminist Media Scholarship in a Multimodal Age,” included Bitch’s Andi Zeisler, the Queer Zine Archive Project’s Milo Miller, and scholars Michelle Habell-Pallan and Tara McPherson. While Zeisler discussed blogging’s utility in feminist activism, and Miller discussed the web’s utility for archiving “twilight media,” Habell-Pallan discussed the importance of new media in American Sabor, the first interpretive museum exhibition to tell the story of the influence and impact of Latinos in American popular music. All three speakers communicated important messages for feminists wishing to bridge activism and scholarship, but it was Tara McPherson’s polemic, “Remaking the Scholarly Imagination,” that captivated the audience and had conference Tweeters typing like crazy. McPherson challenged the CP audience to adjust to the changing nature of the humanities by engaging with “the materiality of digital machines,” namely code, systems, and networks.The CP plenary was Friday’s anticipated event. The plenary, titled “Publishing What We Preach: Feminist Media Scholarship in a Multimodal Age,” included Bitch’s Andi Zeisler, the Queer Zine Archive Project’s Milo Miller, and scholars Michelle Habell-Pallan and Tara McPherson. While Zeisler discussed blogging’s utility in feminist activism, and Miller discussed the web’s utility for archiving “twilight media,” Habell-Pallan discussed the importance of new media in American Sabor, the first interpretive museum exhibition to tell the story of the influence and impact of Latinos in American popular music. All three speakers communicated important messages for feminists wishing to bridge activism and scholarship, but it was Tara McPherson’s polemic, “Remaking the Scholarly Imagination,” that captivated the audience and had conference Tweeters typing like crazy. McPherson challenged the CP audience to adjust to the changing nature of the humanities by engaging with “the materiality of digital machines,” namely code, systems, and networks.
Now, what Click doesn’t mention — and perhaps rightly so — is that part of what had Tweeters typing like crazy was a potentially incendiary phrase uttered during the Q&A session. Discussing where media studies needs to go in order to remain relevant during the next century, McPherson pointed out that “as lovely and elegant as Lost is, it doesn’t really matter.” This particular phrase echoed through the Twittersphere, Tweeted by myself and others, reaching hundreds of scholars following the conference remotely. This particular point was one of the most circulated (at least virtually) of the conference, and inspired Jason Mittell to author a response of sorts on his blog entitled “Don’t Tell Me What I Can’t Do.” (For those of you not in media studies: there’s tension in the academia between those who think that studying actual texts is important and others who find it not as crucial to the future of the discipline. See McPherson’s response to Jason’s piece for more conversation on that point.)
Importantly, the comment simultaneously was and was not taken out of context. Sure, without actually hearing all of the talk — or the specific wording of the question to which McPherson was responding — it’s difficult to know exactly what she meant. But at the same time, myself and others were diligently live Tweeting snippets and key concepts from her address — which, to be very clear, I *loved.* Here’s just a sampling of what I tweeted from the talk — this was probably written over the course of about 3 minutes:
Thus, when I and others Tweeted her comment on “Lost doesn’t really matter,” it wasn’t without already having worked diligently to establish the other ideas and concepts that she was forwarding. McPherson herself was disappointed that a single comment — one that Nina Huntemann appropriately termed “media studies bait” was what many took away from the talk. Again, I’d like to emphasize that there were many other ideas taken away from the talk — especially the ‘silo-busting’ phrase — and that McPherson is correct to be disappointed if that’s what people remembered from the otherwise inspiring, challenging, deeply insightful address.
But not only would I say that it’s not what those in actual attendance took away — it’s also not what those in the Twittersphere took away…..unless they tuned in for a single 3-minutes of Tweets and refused to look before or after. And for better or worse, McPherson knew she was being live-Tweeted, and that that phrase, no matter the context ,would read as incendiary. As Bethany Nowviskie points out, most of those critiqued on Twitter at academic conferences are also *present* on Twitter and able to respond; appropriately, Tara McPherson regularly tweets from conferences and even live-tweeted the speeches leading up to her own.
Which all brings me to my overarching point and title of this post: how criticism of how scholars are Twitter has the potential to scare grad students away from using it — especially in the conference setting — altogether.
Because our conferences are (relatively) small and the number of people Tweeting them is even smaller, those who are participating in the backchannel are highly visible. Many people *follow* the backchannel on their smartphones, but participate little or not at all — in part because it’s too cumbersome to update swiftly and eloquently on such devices. Yet those who are updating frequently, as I was, in part because I had a computer, but also because I’m a ridiculously fast typist (thanks to an Apple IIe program called ‘PAWS’ that I played non-stop from age 5-8), my handle and name was incredibly visible on the feed. Looking at the stream now, I’d venture that 75% of the Tweets came from non-professors.
Put differently, those who are in some ways most vulnerable to rumor and word of mouth — e.g. graduate students — are not only doing most of the labor in making the conference visible to the rest of the world….but also exposing ourselves to criticism and visibility by those who think that a.) Twitter doesn’t have a place at conferences or b.) we’re ‘getting it wrong.’ What bothers me about these particular critiques is their passive aggressivity: if I’m doing it wrong, tell me so, either in real life or on Twitter. Part of why I like Amanda’s recent post so much is her willingness to think through what worked and didn’t work with Twitter at CP — but I think that we need to have more frank conversations, especially with those who not only don’t Tweet, but don’t read academic blogs. To put it plainly: we need to have conversations with those who are most critical and dismissive of Tweeting, who are most often (but certainly not always) senior scholars, and who are often in charge of whether or not we, as graduate students, get hired.
Of course, scholars, whether professors or grad students, shouldn’t write things on the backchannel that they wouldn’t say in the Q&A session, and I was very careful to craft my own comments according to that maxim. Twitter shouldn’t be a gossip session — it should be an opportunity to better formulate responses to what’s being said…and also to help open up the conference to those not in attendance. I’ve had several non-academics on my Twitterstream tell me how fascinated they were to see the ‘innards’ of an academic conference — and that’s *exactly* the sort of positive exposure that we, as scholars whose work is often undervalued or ridiculed by those outside of the academia, should be looking for.
But if our legitimate responses to a panel — whether in the form of transcribed a quote that struck us as particularly incendiary, asking for more attention to race/class, or simply bemoaning the fact that a scholar seemed to be dismissive of a topic — become a liability, then it’ll certainly discourage us from continuing to cultivate the back channel in the future. Junior scholars should be encouraged to participate in discourse, both critical and affirmative, about scholarship — whether in spoken conversation or Tweeted @s. But the visibility following this particular conference, especially as I’m about to enter the job market in the Fall, makes me think twice about whether I’ll be live-Tweeting again.
Meta-Post: Sorting Through Twilight Hate Mail
On Monday, I published a post entitled “Why Kristen Stewart Matters.” The post worked through Stewart’s image, commenting on the ways in which her star text has been conflated with that of her most famous character, Bella Swan, and concluded with a defense, of sorts, of those who believe in the ‘real life’ relationship between Stewart and her Twilight co-star, Robert Pattinson.
To be clear: while I commented on the ways in which Stewart appears in public and the way that her acting style is often times described, I never said that I, personally, dislike Stewart. Or her movies. Or her star. Or her haircut. Or that I disapproved of her smoking pot, not wearing make-up, etc.
To be even clearer: I am, in fact, a fan of Twilight — even though I have profoundly ambivalent and complicated feelings about the text, it gets to me. I’ve written about those feelings — and done ethnographic research on other feminists with a complicated relationship to the text — elsewhere. What’s more, I like Kristen Stewart! I even like her when she’s not Bella. And I have no problem if she is, in fact, dating Robert Pattinson — a possibility that I in no way foreclosed.
But as evidenced by nearly one hundred comments, some more hateful than others, I did not make the above position clear.
How did the Twihaters find my modest academic blog, you wonder? Not through random Googling. Rather, through the magic of old school linking and Twitter.
Journey of a Post
I published the story late Sunday night; waited to publicize until Monday morning. However, someone at Movie City News, who had happened upon an earlier guest post on Ellen Page and linked from the main site, must have seen the post on his/her reader on Sunday night, because it was on the Movie City News homepage early Monday morning and already funneling readers to the post.
Sometime that morning, Jen Yamato, a senior editor at Rotten Tomatoes, tweeted a link to the story; her Tweet was soon picked up by RobPattzNews, which, with 50,000 followers, opened the floodgates. In addition to the thousands of readers from Movie City News and Yamato’s Followers, the link was retweeted dozens of times, posted on several IMDB chat boards, linked at Twilight fan sites, etc. etc, culminating in nearly 10,000 hits in one 24-hour period and earning the #7 spot on the WordPress Top Spot Chart. In other words, if you want internet traffic, write about Twilight.
In the end, a post intended for an audience either versed in star studies, semiotics, and the general project of my blog — the analysis of star production and reception — was read by thousands unfamiliar with my overarching purpose. My thoughts came off as defamatory, insulting, hateful, vengeful, replete with jealousy. For many, I was yet one more condescending outsider who could not understand how or why fans found Stewart, Pattinson, or their potential relationship important.
Of course, I did receive a fair amount of positive, or at least appreciative, feedback — all of which I posted. But I made the executive decision not to post the hateful comments — in part because I had already decided that I would do a post like this one allowing such comments to see the light of day, but also, admittedly, because they were hurtful, as much as I tried to stay objective about them. One can only take so much of being called a jealous, unintelligent bitch — although some were quite hilarious, as you’ll find below.
I’m certainly not the first to be subjected to such anonymous vitriol. Lainey Gossip receives equally dismissive and vicious hate mail every time she posts on anyone and anything related to Twilight — including those who ridicule her race, her family, her husband, her looks, etc. Dooce receives so many hateful comments that she has brilliantly decided to “monetize the hate” — creating a separate site, surrounded by ads, to generate ad profit off people reading the hate mail.
Looking through the comments, I find they can be divided into a few general categories: Believers/Evidencers, Defenders, and Ridiculers.
In general:
Believers voice their faith in the existence of the Stewart/Pattinson romance. Even the suggestion that it was fabricated or suggested by the studio is blasphemy. I’ve merged this group with the Evidencers, who counter my post with their own evidence — sometimes specific, sometimes tangential — that Pattison and Stewart are together. They likewise point out that I have not done my research — and that if I did, I would know not only that they are together, but that some fans hate their romance. Most interestingly, several posters accused me of not having ample evidence myself — and that I should either do more research (on fan boards, etc., to get a feel for what the fans are really thinking) and/or keep my nose out of their business.
Defenders take issue with what they read as my dislike or criticism of Kristen Stewart — her acting, her general look, etc. These posters seem far more concerned with Stewart than the romance — indeed, many of them want to think of Stewart outside of her Twilight role, and dislike my reading of her star as intensely inflected by the Bella role.
Ridiculers are obviously the most hilarious as the bunch, as they go straight to my personal integrity and qualifications. I’ll let these speak for themselves — and you should let me know which one you’d most like to have directed at you — but I’m struck by the presence of romantic individualism, a term Angela McRobbie uses to describe the ways that women attack each other in their quest for men, essentially dividing an otherwise powerful gender-bound coalition.
I’m posting the comments at length — not all of them, but the best of them — and would love to hear your feedback. Ultimately, I’m most struck by the ways in which a post wrote without jargon, intended for an audience of both academics and non-academics, could be interpreted so variously. Importantly, almost everyone who regularly reads my blog is familiar with the idea of star studies and star construction; whether or not they voiced it explicitly, it was that suggestion of construction that inflamed most readers.
While I can’t monetize the hate as brilliantly as Dooce, I can make my own (academic) profit off such commentary. Such is the purpose of this post.
BELIEVERS/EVIDENCERS
You could`ve just written 2 sentences.”I am so fucking jealous of Kristen Stewart&her relationship with Robert Pattinson.And let me count you all the reasons for my jealousy,which will be hidden very deeply in my faux *breaking down of their non-relationship*,which I am afraid as hell that it might actually be real,hence this entire post.”
You would save me 10 mins of my life,that I lost reading this BS,the time I will now never get back.Grow up&smell the coffee,hun.The writing is on the wall.Making yourself believe there is no R/K will get you nowhere fast.You`ll see what I mean soon.
Goodness, all that angsty filler. Pattinson and Stewart are together and have been *at least* since New Moon began filming. By the last month of filming, she’d moved into the Sheraton where he’d been staying.
They’re still together, and are a lot less interested in hiding it- staying at Chateau Marmont and the Charlie hotel in LA.
They are currently the only major cast memebers staying at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver. What a coincidence.
Beyond the mountain of evidence that they’re a couple, why would anyone expect that they are together? Well, you could go with the odds and it has nothing to do with their on-screen romance. Kristen and Rob and A-list celebs now. That doomed Kristen’s relaysh with Michael A. Women rarely, if ever, date down the food chain. Men might sometimes, but it’s rare for a woman
I would almost agree under any other circumstances. But there’s waaaaay too much evidence to point Robert and Kristen being together. I don’t expect them to come out and confirm any relationship (so many stars who are together do not ie: Beyonce, Jay-Z etc). To be honest at the very beginning I hadn’t read the books or seen the movie and I was drawn to do so out of curiosity. I would see magazine covers splashed with their photos all over so I decided to do my own investigating. I saw all of the interviews,panels,photoshoots,photo ops,premeires etc. I was fascinated by their closeness their chemistry that giddinesa and sparkle I would see in each others eyes that was so clear to see. I’m a 31 yr old married woman and definetly not delusional..I could planely see the that these two were falling in love with each other..To me it’s very interesting when I see others who don’t see the obvious but I guess some people are cynical or their minds are clouded by other things..but to me it’s as plain as day…
You cannot be serious. I suggest you go to Twilight fan sites where they ALL worship RP’s ass and see how much they DO NOT want him to be with Kristen. So, yeah. Before you write something like this , do a little research beforehand and avoid coming across as such an ignorant person. I know this won’t go through since you don’t have the balls to let everyone comment and all the comments are being screened. But, hey, at least you read it.
idk about them..lol..and as far as not wanting us to like her..ok your opinion..more like i would say she’s just over people like you ..who are obviously not fans of hers and do and say everything you can to bash her and then think this is intelligent mature conversation..umm no its not..i really dont know who you are ..where you come from..or what kind of blog this is..but one things for sure..you have a major issue..with Kristen Stewart..”sigh”..but then again..who doesnt these days..its really getting old..get your facts straight and do a little more research on this young lady next time you decide to write an article about her..because you are greatly misinformed and your research is way off.
DEFENDERS
Just tell me one thing: do you know Kristen or Rob?
Cause the way you talk (write), it looks like you’re really close to them…
Get over yourself, hon, you’re trying to look smart and insightful, but instead, you’re just doing exactly like the tabs, trying to come up with explanations about something you know nothing about.
Who are you to judge Kristen, when you’ve never even talked to her, had a conversation at least?
How can you be so shallow to talk about someone you don’t really know?
I don’t know her either, but as far as I see, she’s just a 19 year old trying cope with all the twilight craziness and not loose her mind.
It’s so easy talk about people when you have no idea how they feel.
You should be ashamed, you never know who are going to read this BS you wrote.
Kristen Stewart is an accomplished actress who has been working in the industry for 10 years. She has been praised by people she has worked with over and over again and has a huge fan base who adore her. It just appears now that Rob Pattinson is quite taken with her, his jealous fans such as yourself, feel the need to criticize her openly in your blogs. What’s your purpose? Do you think Rob or Kristen care what you think? Does it make yourself feel better? Your bitter jealousy is visible in this article and it’s unattractive. Get off your high horse because you will never have what Kristen Stewart does.
I’ve been a fan of Kristen Stewart for years. I find it sexist that apparently in your mind Kristen has to always wear dresses, watch her word words, and just sit and look pretty. She is famous. She has done movies with some of the biggest actors and actresses. Bella Swan might be well know but not famous in that sense. Unless you mean that everyone wants her vampire boyfriend, then yes. The magazines are wrong with all their BS covers that try to make it sound like Edward and Bella but most people don’t think of them like that. When I read the the book, sure I see Edward and Bella as Rob and Kristen but I don’t expect them in real life to act like that. Really the way you hate Kristen I think you are expecting her to be like Bella. Bella is a weak little girl that just needs a mans help which then maybe its good Kristen isn’t like that.
No offense, but you seem to dislike Kristen. I’m disappointed that you aren’t more objective. Although Bella put her on the map with the general pulic, Kristen was already on the map and respected in HW and with HW insiders. I disagree that “Bella” will define Kristen. Once this series of movies is over, she will move on to better characters. The fans of Twilight will not follow Kristen to other movies. Thank God! For some reason a good portion of this fan base comes accross as extemely irrational in their criticism and hatred of her. Methinks some jealous little girls and cougars wish they were “Bella”. I am in the middle ground over whether a real relationship exists between Robert P. and Kristen, but I have to ask; who are your sources that youare so sure its NOT a real romance? I’m very confused about your claim that this is a publicity stunt. Why would a romance between Robert and Kristen would be a publicity stunt deigned by the studio? Don’t most of the twi-hards hate Kristen? Don’t most of the Robsessed think Rob is better off alone and waiting for them? Only a small percentage of the fans are actual “shippers” so a publicity stunt makes no sense whatsoever.
You leave no doubt that you do not care for Kristen Stewart’s acting abilities. But to imply that she is without talent negates the opinions of Sean Penn, Jodie Foster, Donald Sutherland, etc., who have VERY high opinions of her abilities. Then you twist her relationship with Robert Pattinson to paint them both as studio puppets who pretend to be dating. And because you still feel the need to insult and condescend, you paint the fans as unable to distinguish between what they see on screen and off. Obviously, you have an agenda and you attempt to disguise it with seemingly thoughtful analysis, but your “analysis” fails in that it doesn’t consider the real story.
Im sorry i completely disagree with you. First of all, Kristen has been well known in hollywood inner circles for a LONG time for her acting. Her acting in Speak, Into the Wild, and Cake Eaters, were critically praised, and she is considered one of the most talented young actresses in hollywood. She had all this before Twilight. Heck, this is a girl, who is praised by Sean Penn and Jodie Foster, two of the best actors in cinema, as being one of the most talented young actresses Hollywood has ever seen. Second, fans of Kristen Stewart love her because of her the way she dresses, the way she speaks her mind, and the way she doesnt care about hollywood’s expectations. How refreshing, that there is a young actress now days who doesnt care about the publicity and the fame, and all she cares about is the craft. In a sea of superficiality and disingenious people, Kristen Stewart stands out as a talented, individual.
While you attempted to be intellectual and dissect why people are fascinated by Kristen Stewart, you failed utterly and proved yourself to be another KStew hater. i think its you who doesnt understand why a lot of fans have fallen in love with this girl
Kristen Stewart is one of my favourite actress and that’s been the case since way before Twilight. I think she’s a stunningly beautiful young woman and a very talented actress. Despite her young age, she has worked with many important names in the business and all of them have a very high opinion of her. I appreciate K’s efforts to maintain a somewhat normal life despite the hype caused by everything Twilight. And I am very happy that she and Rob have found one another.
Okay wow..i dont even know where to start..whats with the Kristen hate..good lord like i said..you’ve called her out and insulted her on so many different levels..not really sure where to start..umm but i’ll try with this first..sorry but i have never seen K wear ugly clothes in public..she has her own style obviously..so totally different than anyone else in HollyWood..and i admire her for it..but not ugly by any means..and have never seen her wear 2 day old make up in public..and if she did..well that tells me the cameras were a little to close up in her business..because come on ladies..who hasnt done it from time to time..if u say you havent went out in public even briefly with out washing off your make up a couple of times..then u are telling a fib..lol..and her mullet..how many more times does it have to be said..she did it for a movie role people..i admire her all the more for cutting off her beautiful long brown hair for this role..and some people seem to forget..yes she did have beautiful long hair at one point..and sure she will again..it hasnt always been a mullet..lol..and as far as her acting style..you need to go back and read what all the people that have worked with her has said about her acting style..and skills..nothing but praise..from names that mean something..and i would think know a little bit more about someones acting abilities than you..no offence intended of course..and as far as not speaking up on her relay with Rob Pattinson..well i think we could say he’s just as tight lipped as she and that would be their business..and really..you think maybe its all for PR huh..well i guess time will tell..have to say that really throws your take on Kstews acting skills out the window..lol..it would take one heck of an actress and actor by the way..to fake their off screen chemistry and all those meetings and hotel stays and concerts and pics..yes it would take a really dedicated actress to fool us all for the past year and 1/2..luv her truly..and him…great method actors those 2.
“I may be all alone in this, but I like Kristen BECAUSE of all the reasons you mention we should not ” I LOVE HER! and you’re a so jealous Person… Ok ROB IS YOURS… ARE YOU HAPPY? GROW UP! PLEASE!
RIDICULERS
anne you’re a jealous b*tch. leave kristen alone and quit trying to tear her down. she’s done nothing to deserve your scorn and doesn’t care what you think of her. you look like a jealous fangirl with this drivel.
I find this post highly disrespectful, cynical, hateful and ignorant towards both Kristen and Robert and their fans at large. I have to give you credit for trying at least to sound intellectual. This sounds like a sociology paper i did in college freshman year. But you’re straining. First of all, the attacks against Kristen are so off-base I don’t have enough time to get into it here. Secondly, it is FACT they they are best friends and in love, dating, shagging, whatever you want to you call it. That isn’t because I read tabloids (they all suck) or because of some naive wish- fulfillment. I’m 34, divorced, attend grad school, and have worked since I was 15. I’m happy, have tons of friends, like my parents, realize world peace will never happen, and can separate fact from fiction. Hence, I am no “fangirl”. I don’t scream, stalk, wish Rob bit me or that Kristen would walk the plank. I know they are together because I have paid attention. I have watched them; You Tube videos and in person. I’ve read countless interviews and aritlces, and seen thousands of photos; I’ve read comments from the interviewers, photographers, directors and actors they’ve worked with; I read facial expressions, body language. And because of this knowledge, I WANT them to be together… becuase THEY MAKE EACH OTHER HAPPY. Shocking, I know. Direct sources? yes, I have them, but that’s besides the point. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist. The truth is staring us all in the face; the question is do you want to admit it???
You could`ve just written 2 sentences.”I am so fucking jealous of Kristen Stewart&her relationship with Robert Pattinson.And let me count you all the reasons for my jealousy,which will be hidden very deeply in my faux *breaking down of their non-relationship*,which I am afraid as hell that it might actually be real,hence this entire post.”
You would save me 10 mins of my life,that I lost reading this BS,the time I will now never get back.Grow up&smell the coffee,hun.The writing is on the wall.Making yourself believe there is no R/K will get you nowhere fast.You`ll see what I mean soon.
I think you need serious help. Weather you like it or not there is a Robsten. Alot of ppl do ont appreciate your bashing of Kristen and i’m sure Rob does not. This is not for PR for the movies.
I dare you to post even the negative comments. A true academician and a real scholar can dish it out as well as take it.
Otherwise, I suggest you go back and talk to your professors and ask what academic means.
Strange that only positive comments get posted. You’re too chicken shit to accept a negative comment yet you want to appear scholarly. You’re a poser. A fake.
If you cannot be intelligent enough to accept both negatrive and positives, at least try and not to be so superficial. Playing Bella doesn’t define Kristen Stewart.That’s why she couldn’t care less walking around being un-Bella like.
Being Edward and Bella in the Twi franchise may define or may not Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s relationship to each other. Even if it does, you can only wish you were Kristen so you could at least be with Rob in some way. And then maybe, you should also stop and think that maybe, they really do like each other and they really do have a relatiionship. Unless you know for sure that they don’t, stop assuming they don’t have one.
But with a brain cells like yours, you’d never get it.
Annie Petersen, you’re a journalist, and you should have done more research. These two are a couple. You’re right, Kristen Stewart matters, and you don’t, so get over it. Jelousy is not a good thing. Leave her alone. You know nothing about her, so why judge her. Just because you’ve seen a few movies she’s done, or some pictures of her, all of a sudden you think you know her. true fans who have had incounters with her, had nothing but good things to say about her. The reason why they don’t shut down the dating rumors, is because they are dating. If you did enough research you would know that these two are extremely private people who don’t like to flaunt their relationship like the rest of the Hollywood does.
Anne, insteresting read. So basically what you are saying is that this is a plan by the studio to make fools believe that Robert and Kristen are a couple, and that all the sightings of them together, which you didn’t include in your piece, are basically a PR stunt. Plausible, but that would mean that Kristen and Robert are putting their lives on hold for the sake of their paycheck which would really turn people off. So your assessment is that they are playing their fans, or at least the fools who believe they could be a couple. Wonderful. My question to you is, do you know for a fact they are not a couple, or are you trying to make sense of how fans view these people? Because I can tell you that I know the difference between fictional characters and real people, and so do other Twilight fans. Many of whom like Rob and Kristen in spite of the characters they play. Many became fans after watching their inteactions during interviews, which to many, seemed honest and not staged. So basically you are alluding that Rob and Kristen are just playing the studio game, collecting their paycheck and laughing at the fans who support them. Not to mention, you clearly dissed Kristen in your thought proviking piece. I still haven’t decided if this is your opinion, or you have the facts to back this up. I guess we will never know. Or yet again, we may know after Rob and Kristen collect their paychecks.
And my personal favorite:
This is a ridiculous article. Are you really a journalist or a work experience student trying your luck? FAIL!
